IMPORTANT ELEMENTS

1.) Your personal statement should highlight your research experience, academic achievements, and future career goals. It is of the utmost importance to demonstrate how your own interests align with the program, faculty members and university you are applying to. This is why tailoring each application to your school of interest is essential, but this does take up time. My suggestion is to craft a narrative that builds around your research experience to reflect your personal research goals. Admissions committees will look for applicants who have a strong research background.

2.) If you are currently thinking of going to graduate school and have no research experience, you can look for opportunities working as a research assistant during your undergraduate or post-bac years. Additionally, presenting at undergraduate-oriented conferences or symposia is an excellent chance to polish your CV and get relevant skills. RURS and GCURS are two excellent examples. Participating in summer research programs (many of which have funding) is also an invaluable opportunity to gain experience and network with graduate students and faculty members. You can look up some REU sites here!

3.) Ask for letters of recommendation (LOR), reach out to your recommenders with enough time. The usual guideline is 2 weeks in advance but try to give them a month initial heads up with reminders built in at the 2-week and 1-week mark as professors get busy Choose your LOR authors carefully. The ideal recommender is a professor or individual who has been involved in your previous education and research activities. Personal acquaintances or authors who do not know you well are not good choices. When reaching out, it’s good to include a brief summary of work with the LOR author. For example, “My experience doing X,Y, and Z in your lab inspired me to continue my research career.”

4.) Remember to give your recommenders context on the programs you are applying to and remind them of deadlines as these approach. Many will ask for your statements of purpose and application essays as well as your CV, so make sure you have those ready when reaching out to your recommenders. Your application will not be complete if your recommenders do not submit their LORs, so check in with them to ensure that they do. Finally, ask for application fee waivers! Grad school applications are expensive. You will be paying for standardized tests, official transcripts, translators, and application fees. Many schools offer application fee waivers to candidates who fulfill specific requirements. Others of fer fee waiver “weeks” i.e. submitting your application during a particular week will waive your fee. Be sure to ask whether this is an option when attending information sessions or when emailing department coordinators.

In summary, there is no one way to approach doctoral programs and their applications, as not all of these are one-size-fits-all. Applying to graduate school requires careful planning, preparation, research, and time. Identifying programs and labs that align with your research interests, gaining research experience and preparing strong application materials will increase your chances of getting accepted into a doctoral program. Good luck!

Design by Bryant Polanco

Neuroscience has been a topic of recent media fascination, especially since the advent of functional neuroimaging over 30 years ago, which has allowed us to visualize and calculate the brain’s activation. Neuroimaging gave people hope that much more could be revealed about the mind than was possible, which resulted in an overanalysis and misapplication of neuroimaging data.

Currently, many acclaimed news sources have health and psychology sections which frequently publish articles that seem to reveal a new aspect of the brain every day. In O’Connor et al., a study examined the headlines and contents of neuroscience articles published on large news sites.

“Research has shown that keeping the mind agile is just as important as keeping fit in the battle to stay young. In fact, by stretching the brain with regular crossword and sudoku puzzles, you can make your brain appear up to 14 years younger.” (Daily Mail, September 13, 2005)

“Under stress or pressure, a woman sees spending time talking with her man as a reward, but a man sees it as an interference in his problem-solving process. She wants to talk and cuddle, and all he wants to do is watch football. To a woman, he seems uncaring and disinterested and a man sees her as annoying or pedantic. These perceptions are a reflection of the different organisation and priorities of their brains.” (Daily Mail, January 16, 2008)

These articles often push ways to optimize brain function or cite irreparable biological divisions between groups of people. While sometimes we can recognize these articles as misleading, it’s difficult to always be able to make this identification as a lay person and not as a neuroscience expert.

Weisberg et al. conducted an influential study where they set up an experiment to determine if adding neuroscience jargon into good and bad psychology explanations would influence how good people rated the quality of the explanations. They found that bad explanations were largely boosted in perceived credibility when unnecessary neuroscience facts were added, essentially fooling people into thinking that they received a good scientific explanation when they did not. This study brings up the issue with the influx of bad neuroscience research published by the media that is largely being accepted by the general public.

Thus, experts are increasingly encouraging people to employ neuroskepticism, where neuroscience technologies and conclusions should be questioned to a reasonable degree. Not only is this relevant to the everyday person, but neuroscience research can influence policy decisions and legal decisions as well.

For example, a study concluded that there existed a “Mozart effect” where newborns listening to classical music had better mental development. As a result, the state of Georgia proposed a budget plan that would allow every child in the state to be given their own classical music tape.

Additionally, O’Connor et al. mentioned how certain individuals are promoting neuroimaging to influence politics.

“Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist and owner of a chain of private brain-scanning clinics, has suggested in the US press that all presidential candidates should have their grey matter probed. This, he suggests, would help to steer clear of a future Adolf Hitler (cursed with ‘faulty brain wiring’) or Slobodan Milosevic (who suffered ‘poor brain function’).” (Times, January 7, 2008)

Ensuring that neuroscience research that extends beyond the scientific community is well-studied is essential before making any wide-scale changes in our social structures.

Design by Kate Hilton